People gathered around lava, Iceland.

Eric Sloane

“Whoever has gained wisdom concerning ancient origins will eventually look for wells of the future and for new origins.”

—F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Part Three, “On Old and New Tablets,” §25 (excerpt).

Eric Sloane

Micki, the baby fox by Astrid Bergman Sucksdorff, 1954.

Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?

- Stanisław Jerzy Lec

Mayfield, Kentucky movie theater after 2021 Tornado

In 1979, 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer killed 2 people and wounded 9. Her answer as to why she did it? “I don’t like Mondays.”

“Everybody has experienced the defeat of their lives. Nobody has a life that worked out the way they wanted it to work out. We all begin as the hero of our own dramas, in centre stage, and inevitably life moves us out of centre stage, defeats the hero, overturns the plot and the strategy and we’re left on the sidelines, wondering why we no longer have a part, or want a part, in the whole damn thing. So everybody’s experienced this. When it’s presented to us sweetly, the feeling goes from heart to heart and we feel less isolated and we feel part of the great human chain, which is really involved with the recognition of defeat.”

— Leonard Cohen on why people enjoy listening to melancholy songs (from a BBC radio interview in 2007)

Eric Sloane

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

— Stanislaw J. Lec